Like a Papa turtle do
by StupidBolts
Summary: Leatherhead was calm, content. Being with Mikey made him happy, and that was all Slash needed to know.
1. Chapter 1

Slash felt content with Raphael's slight weight leaning on his side. The couch groaned under him, not used to his sheer size, and the spikes on his shell pierced the cushions. Splinter said he'd fix them later; the old rat seemed to have a lot of spare time on his hands. Raphael's eyes were closed, but Slash wasn't entirely convinced that he was asleep. His owner had a habit of resting his eyes, stemming from the mishap of getting ooze in them the day he and his family mutated. Donatello had once concluded that Raph's eyes would have been brown like his own if not for that. It gave them their uniquely vibrant green colour, but also caused them to sting from time to time.

"You awake?," Slash murmured quietly, low enough to not wake Raph if he was wrong.

"Yeah, I'm awake," the smaller turtle replied drearily. _Not yet_, Slash thought with a smile.

He muted a chuckle in his chest, then carefully wrapped an arm around Raphael's shoulders and squeezed him closer, silently offering comfort and protection. His friend seemed to accept, tilting his head to nestle against Slash's bicep. He chuckled again, then watched the rest of his friends busy themselves around the pizzeria.

Casey and Leo were hauling furniture out of the way to set up blankets and pillows on the floor for their guests, hissing and snarling at each other about which way to carry a table. April was tending to Jack and her Father, handing them mugs of hot coffee. He could hear Donatello and Tyler arguing in the lab in back, but it didn't sound too heated. Leatherhead was helping Mikey reapply some boards that had fallen off the front windows. Worryingly, he couldn't see their mascot.

"LH, you seen Pete?," he called to his second in command. The alligator promptly acknowledged him with a polite smile.

"I believe he was helping Splinter empty one of the fridges..." Right on cue, there was a loud clatter from the back of the pizza joint, startling Raph out of his dozing. Slash winced and sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his snout. Leatherhead shrugged and smiled sympathetically, before going back to helping Mikey.

"Relax, it was just Pete being an idiot," Slash said to sooth Raphael. "You can go on back to sleep."

"I wasn't sleeping," he insisted, squirming but clearly not inclined to leave his comfy spot.

"'Course not. My bad, Raphie." The juggernaut of a turtle grinned wryly and looked back at the Leonardo and Casey, who had finally managed to stack all the tables and chairs at the side of the room, making space and simultaneously reinforcing a wall. They now sat on one of the upturned tables' undersides, Leo bumping his heels together idly, while Casey tried to chisel some gum off the surface with one of the ninja's kunai knives.

Mikey's burst of laughter caught his attention, as Leatherhead lifted the youngster into the air in order to patch up a hole in the roof. "I'm so high up!," he squealed. "I'm even taller than sensei!"

"That you are," the gator chuckled warmly, cradling the turtle's shell in his palm. Slash watched them; his team mate side stepped carefully to help his friend reach different points on the ceiling, trying not to knock anything with that gargantuan tail.

Slash studied the lumbering appendage twitching across the floor. Leatherhead generally had very good control over his tail, though it did occasionally obtain a mind of its own when the gator was distracted or upset. Their two smaller team mates had made a habit of sitting on it when they were travelling a long distance, and Leatherhead didn't mind one bit. Slash had noted in the past how it sometimes acted like a puppy's tail; wagging when he was happy, drooping and tucking between his legs when he was sad or intimidated.

It was ridiculous to think of something twice the length and breadth of his own arm as such, but Slash somehow found Leatherhead's tail was very cute. It helped him read his usually stoic and collected friend, as well as entertained him when it unexpectedly whipped around and startled the gator.

It was currently docile, rippling across the checkered floor like cloth in a gentle breeze. Leatherhead was calm, content. Being with Mikey made him happy, and that was all Slash needed to know. The turtle smiled and settled back further into the couch, which protested noisily.

"Are you staring at Leatherhead's tail, or his butt?" He looked down snappily at his old owner, whose eyes were only half lidded and peering up at him sleepily. Raphael canted his head over slightly and blinked, curiosity far more noticeable when he was so unguarded. Not that Slash had ever been incapable of reading Raph.

"I wasn't... That's not... Neither," he replied clumsily, glancing every which way to avoid those green eyes. Raph blinked blearily once again, then a sleepy smile spread over his face.

"Do you have a crush, Spiky?," the little turtle cooed, almost like a parent teasing their child.

"Slash...," he grumbled. His eyes darted back to his second in command, who had lowered Mikey from the roof and was simply holding him in both hands like a plush toy. The tiny turtle giggled and flailed around, prompting his huge friend to bounce him up and down and spin him round. Without realising, a warm smile drifted onto Slash's face.

"You so do." He looked back down at Raph just as his owner stretched his short arms as far as they would go around Slash's belly. He closed his eyes and nuzzled a cheek against the behemoth's chest, gladly submitting to slumber now. "My Spiky's in love," he hummed, happily cuddled against the large mutant he still considered his baby. Slash's brow furrowed, but he curled a hand over Raph's shell all the same.

"You're weird when you're exhausted, Raphie," he muttered, before nodding good night to Leatherhead and Leo, and following his owner into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Pete's hyper active fluttering and squawking made Slash's head spin, but he'd bear with it until the pigeon got his happy "welcome back" flapping out of his system. The kid dropped onto his shoulders and rolled around, climbing up the giant turtle's arms, and tackling a very disgruntled Rockwell to give him a rib-crushing hug. Jack had laughed and congratulated them on a job well done. Slash argued that technically the mission was a failure, since he and Tyler were compromised.

"Not on the mission to intercept the delivery," Kurtzman smiled. "On everything after that."

He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but he didn't press for answers when he was so exhausted. Questions and thoughts were already swimming around in his head. Worries and guilt he wanted so greatly to sleep away. For starters, his concern for the state of Raphael's relationship with his family bugged him to no end. From the beginning, when he was first mutated, he was of the opinion the other turtles were like a chain and ball, weighing down his owner for fifteen merciless years. When he'd actually developed a less animalistic mind set, he began to realise that he was mistaken. The only set back to Raphael was his own temper, triggered by his brothers' more carefree personalities. But Raph needed his family more than he needed a partner.

But Slash's worry was rising again after the events of that day. Even with the mind worm burrowing into his brain, he could see plain as day how _stone_ like the boys were. The most worry that had been shown was Mikey's piteous utterance of their brother's name. Their reaction to his attack on Splinter was more volatile than when they found Raphael was under Shredder's control. And it was harsh words and insults Leonardo used to snap his brother out of it, not tenderness or _friendship_.

Slash rubbed his eyes, then grunted a good night to Jack and plodded off to his room. "Pete, leave the doc alone for five minutes, will ya?," he called over his shoulder, earning a sigh of relief from the ape and a disappointed whine from the pigeon.

The Mutanimals had made a temporary home in an abandoned warehouse on the opposite side of town from their last base. Giant rolling doors lined the halls, but most of them were either rusted open, or had been so impossibly stuck that Slash and Leatherhead had simply bashed them down. They were searching for a more secure location, somewhere with more privacy, but were making do for the time being.

Slash ambled down the hallway, kneading at his brow where the worm had drilled its way inside. The pain was like a drum, though the thumping was probably his pulse in his ears. He sighed, the pile of old, ruined mattresses he called his bed calling their sweet song to him.

As he passed Leatherhead's room, he paused, seeing the alligator sat quietly in the corner. The big fella didn't seem to notice him. His shoulders were lax, leaning heavily against the wall as he cradled something in his hand. He wasn't meditating, and looked thoroughly miserable. Despite his headache, Slash slipped into Leatherhead's room, clearing his throat.

"You doing okay there, brother?" The alligator flinched, head snapping around in surprise. Then relaxing when he saw Slash.

"Oh, my apologies. I didn't hear you..." The turtle shook his head, then nodded to the gator's hands.

"Watcha' got there?," he asked, moving closer slowly. On the off chance Leatherhead didn't want him to see what it was, he didn't want to agitate his friend by crowding him. The alligator looked bashful for a second, then stretched out his hand to him. He held a scrap of fabric, clearly from a shirt. It had been ripped diagonally from the shoulder, only showing the upper half of a skull pattern.

"After the invasion I... I went to see if I could find my original owner. He wouldn't have recognised me, but I just wanted to know..." He shook his head, then pulled the scrap back to his chest. "He and his parents were gone. Already abducted... I suppose it was a whim, but I found one of his old shirts, all torn up... I just..."

"Wanted something to remember him by," Slash finished for him. "Don't worry, I know. It's not as touching, but I kinda feel the same way about my Morning Star. It _was_ Raphael that gave it to me." Leatherhead smiled, but didn't look him in the eye. He stroked the fabric with his thumb, staring at it sadly. Slash analysed his team mate's body language, the sullen look in his eye, and concluded it wasn't nostalgia bringing him down. Rather the shirt was for _comfort._ "What's wrong?"

Blunt as ever. He took a step back when he realised how rude that sounded, folding his hands behind his back and hanging his head. His friend chuckled slightly, peering over at him and nodding.

_It's alright._

"Nothing to worry about. I've dealt with this kind of thing before," Leatherhead rumbled, but that didn't satisfy Slash.

"You don't have to. Not alone, I mean. That's what being part of a team is _for_," he insisted, offering his empty hand as show of assurance. The gator glanced at it, then winced and tried to smile.

"No, you don't have to. I usually rely on Michaelangelo for these sorts of things, so you needn't bother."

"What if I wanna bother?" Leatherhead flinched, and figuratively bit his tongue. That had been very dismissive. The last thing he wanted was to make Slash feel inferior to Mikey. He already had that issue with Leonardo. He glanced at the turtle, who was standing defensively near the middle of his room.

_Don't push him away. You know what it feels like, he was so _distant_ today._

Leatherhead shifted, moving to sit cross legged with his back against the wall. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

_Cleansing breaths. Cleansing breaths._

"It is just... as far as I can remember, I have been seen as a vicious, dangerous creature. My... _conditioned_ reaction to anything related to the Kraa... you know who, has lead so many to fear me," he said slowly. Slash's hackles lowered, relieved yet concerned. He was listening intently. "Don't be upset, I know you weren't in your right of mind. And really, I shouldn't let the past haunt me so. But... I suppose it has just been a long time since anyone has called me... called me..."

Slash made a deep, guilty sigh and rubbed his eyes.

_Don't make me laugh, monster!_

He lifted his head, taking a step forward. "Leatherhead, I'm _so_ sorry. The worm... it burrowed right into my brain, picked out things that I knew and used them against those around me. I've never _once_ thought of you as... as _anything_ that the idiots before have." The gator lifted his massive paw, signalling for him to hush.

"I know, Slash," he smiled. "I know."

"No, you don't." Ever one to follow his gut, forever picking perhaps the most unconventional times to show his evolving views, Slash decided to just go with it. "Maybe I'm wrong, since I haven't been around you for as long as the boys, but I don't think _anyone_ sees you the way I see you. I've known you long enough to understand who it is I'm speaking to, and never once have I wondered _what_ I'm speaking to." This wasn't making sense. He was rambling like Pete after eating doughnuts, and Leatherhead was looking confused. "That didn't come out right."

"I guessed as much." The gator smiled a little, patiently waiting for Slash to gather an explanation.

"I think... I think you and I understand each other on a whole different level to the others. To Tyler and Pete, we're friends and leaders, safe bases to rely upon and posts to grab hold of. That's fine. To Raphael and Michaelangelo, we're innocent pets or... _children_. They adopt the roles of caregivers whenever we see them. I watched them grow up. Kind as they may be, they're used to being the ones that are taken care of by Leonardo and Donatello. You and me, we're _special_ to them. We're the ones _they_ can cradle and fuss over. To act as vessels of security." Leatherhead's brow furrowed, nodding slowly as he assessed Slash's thoughts.

"Yes, I suppose you're right," he replied. As if he was on the turtles wavelength, Leatherhead looked him in the eye, "Then... what are we to each other?"

"I... I don't know," Slash admitted. "Not what I am to you, at least."

"Then what am _I_ to_ you_?"

Slash paused, seething as his headache hammered against his skull. But he'd set the ball rolling now. If he excused himself to sleep off the pain, he would lose his nerve by morning. It was now, and only now. No turning back.

"You... you are..." Slash took a deep breath, copying the calming technique the gator had taught him, originally to reel in his temper. "You're a comforting base, a post to grasp, and a place of security I thought I'd never have after I fell off that roof top. After _Raphael_ called _me_ a monster. Pete and Tyler... they give me the chance to feel useful, to know that they are alive because of me. To know that _at least_ I am good enough to keep them safe." He looked down at the ground balefully, clenching his fist in self-loathing. "But you... _you_ give me the chance to feel of worth. The way you believe in me rather than rely on me, how you encourage me instead of plead with me, and the fact you fight for me because I'm your _friend_..."

"The fact I want you rather than need you."

Leatherhead could have whispered or shouted that, it made no difference to Slash. His head was throbbing, and he knew he was swaying where he stood. His inhibitions thrown to the wind. He just hoped Leatherhead didn't mistake him for being delusional after such a traumatic day instead of spilling his guts.

"As much as I care for Raphael, and admire Leonardo... respect Donatello and _envy_ Michaelangelo..." He was going to fall over. Any second now, he'd hit the ground. "You... you're the one that I..."

Huge hands grasped his shoulders, steadying him and tilting him upright. Leatherhead smiled softly at him, keeping him elevated and afloat. As always.

"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you, my dear friend... this... it means so much to me." The gator curled his arms around Slash's shoulder, pulling their chests together and resting his snout over his shell, careful not to stab himself on any of the intimidating spikes. Dazed, it took the turtle a moment to comprehend what was happening. Then he lifted his arms up under Leatherhead's, and returned the warm hug.

They stayed like that for a moment, holding each other so tenderly that Slash began to feel like his arms were putty from the weight of the situation. Cheek pressed against the gator's shoulder, Slash licked his lips nervously. "_Kuso_... you're gonna have to be real blunt with me on this one... because I might be misreading all this," he grunted, clutching at his friend's back. A somewhat desperate little motion. Leatherhead chuckled, then gently stroking down the side of Slash's shell.

"You're not. I can tell what you were trying to say, and what the question that was to follow would be." Slash's grip loosened, and he closed his eyes with a smile. "And I accept." His headache lessened, stress he hadn't realised was there dissipating. A purr rumbled in his chest, and he began petting the back of Leatherhead's neck.

"_Oh my gosh, I ship it!_"

Slash whipped around so fast his headache came back in full swing, as Pete's shrill squawking echoed in the hallway. Rockwell immediately looked terrified, making a simian shriek and bolting away from the door as quickly as possible, knocking over Pete in the process. The pigeon hit the ground with a squelch, and lay there for a second before Rockwell turned to grab his ankle and drag him along with him.

"_Get your mangy butts back here!_," Slash roared, stampeding after them and skidding around the corner of the door.

Leatherhead blinked in bewilderment, then chuckled again and placed the ripped up t-shirt back in his box of precious things.

**Slash, please convey my feelings for this episode with your thoughts and dialogue, thank you.**


End file.
